We stayed in a lovely, relaxing bungalow for more reasons that simply having somewhere nice to stay, it also meant we could take some time out to relax and write. So on this day we managed to catch up on Cambodia and wrote whilst sitting across from the little island we swam out to the day before and would again voyage out to later that day. We took a break for lunch and ventured up to one of the restaurants a little further up the sunset strip from us in the Don Khon direction. We found a great place with many people sat chatting away so we thought we’d join them for a while. One guy in particular was chatting to us about the Olympus Pen camera and discussing the delights of traveling for a year, he also had a link with Helen’s family having worked at SCOPE for 10 years in the campaigns department, he’d dealt with her great Aunt Hilda several times (this alone is a massive ask in itself) and knew of the late Chris Davies (her son) very well indeed. A small world this is! So we enjoyed some great pumpkin burgers, tasty fruit shakes and good chat before returning to our little shack to inspire further writing.

A much anticipated and refreshing swim was calling as the heat was very intense indeed, so we ended our writing stint, swam and sunbathed and then got ready to enjoy a Valentines night at The Veggie Patch restaurant. We enjoyed a lovely evening with some of the best food we’ve eaten yet on our travels!! We enjoyed a fine feast of Pumpkin Gnocchi with an aubergine and tomato sauce, salad and fresh bread accompanied by free cocktails all evening. We also bought a piece of chocolate cake which was pretty delicious too! They had a few games out and we sat and chatted to others enjoying the food and location. The Veggie Patch is well hidden down on the sunset side with no other restaurants or bungalows around and the owners from France and Australia are very lovely indeed. They spend a lot of time preparing each dish for the day as well as tending to their much loved vegetable patches. We spent most of the evening there until closing and then made our way over to a beach party back on the small beach at the tip of Don Det, it wasn’t however that great so we just decided to make our way back to our little hut.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)

Xi’an and the Terracotta warriors have been on our to-do list before we even left the UK and we have decided on some dates for when we can pay them a visit. You can fly quite cheaply with CTRIP but we wanted to catch the over night train from Beijing so we could sleep and travel. This required us to purchase our first train ticket. Seat 61 is a great website for finding out information on trains in China, so armed with the information we headed to Beijing West train station. A massive building but nowhere the quality of Beijing South station, it was rammed to the rafters with people and luggage. With no English service desk in sight we picked a random window and tried our luck, no luck, however the next window along had an English speaking lady so we sorted the tickets out. We left as quickly as possible due to stress building rapidly from the shear quantity of people and lack of organisation in such public buildings. It isn’t linked in with a subway line at present but if you know the bus routes and the location of the nearest tube you can get there pretty easily.

The subway home, relax time with some editing of photos, diary writing followed by a walk to the nearby lake and internet cafe to upload our new updates. We knew of a vegetation restaurant at the top of the lake and it was only a short distance from where we had been editing away. The Lotus Leaf restaurant founded by Buddhist monks offers a broad selection of vegetarian food. The venue had a chill in the air however the food was very good with fake meat (tofu fashioned into meat textures and flavour) and spicy sauces. Beer is non-alcoholic here and tasted very malty but washed the spice down very well. All in all a good find.

(Leica M9, Summicron-M 50mm f2.0 & Olympus PEN, 17mm f2.8 & 100mm f2.8, processed in Lightroom 3)